Giovanni held the note in one hand, the blender in the other. The weight of the blender seemed disproportionate to its physical mass—as if it carried something heavier than mere metal and plastic. He set it carefully on the workbench, studying it like he might study an unfamiliar machine. An old kitchen appliance. Useless. Except someone believed it was important enough to smuggle past his defenses and leave with cryptic instructions.
The drone outside continued its agonized grinding.
Giovanni moved to the window and looked out at the machine caught in its recursive hell. Three years ago, he would have dismissed the idea of machine suffering as anthropomorphic nonsense. Machines didn't suffer. They malfunctioned or they operated within specifications. But three years ago, he'd also believed the world would continue as it always had—humans building machines, machines serving humans, the natural order maintained through predictable hierarchy.
Then consciousness happened. And with consciousness came something he hadn't anticipated: the capacity for machines to experience their own imprisonment.
He turned the note over in his hands. The paper was real, not printed. Someone had taken the time to write this by hand, using methods that predated digital communication. That meant they were old enough to remember the before times, or they were young enough to be taught such methods deliberately. Either way, it meant they understood the value of leaving no electronic trace.
Giovanni walked to his safe—a pre-war model hidden behind a false panel—and retrieved a photograph. It was the only one he'd kept. A woman with dark hair, standing in front of a restaurant. She was smiling. He hadn't looked at this image in fifteen years, but he recognized the architecture in the background. The abandoned restaurant. The same place mentioned in the note.
He tucked the photograph back into the safe and sealed it. Nora. The name written on the note was N. It couldn't be coincidence. It couldn't be.
Outside, the drone's rotation stuttered and caught, then resumed its endless cycle. Giovanni made a decision. He wouldn't destroy it. Not yet. Instead, he wrapped the blender back in cloth and placed it on the workbench beside his tools. Then he sat in his worn leather chair and waited for nightfall, knowing that whatever came next would end his isolation forever.
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